Why do the nations rage
    and the peoples plot in vain?
The kings of the earth set themselves,
    and the rulers take counsel together,
against the LORD and against his Anointed, saying,
    “Let us burst their bonds apart
and cast away their cords from us.”

He who sits in the heavens laughs;
  the Lord holds them in derision.
Then he will speak to them in his wrath,
  and terrify them in his fury, saying,
“As for me, I have set my King
   on Zion, my holy hill.”

I will tell of the decree:
  The LORD said to me, “You are my Son;
today I have begotten you.
   Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage,
and the ends of the earth your possession.
   You shall break them with a rod of iron
and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.”

Now therefore, O kings, be wise;
   be warned, O rulers of the earth.
Serve the LORD with fear,
   and rejoice with trembling.
Kiss the Son,
   lest he be angry, and you perish in the way,
for his wrath is quickly kindled.
   Blessed are all who take refuge in him.—Psalm 2

Introduction

Former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s most famous speech has been called the “infamy speech.” It lasted only seven minutes and most people only remember the first line:

Yesterday, December 7th, 1941—a date which will live in infamy—the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

Roosevelt asked for a declaration of war against Japan for the attack on Pearl Harbor. But with all due respect to FDR, there is another day that lives in greater infamy and will echo throughout all eternity. It is the “today” of Psalm 2:7. Let us look together to figure out what day that is. The New Testament makes it very clear: it is Easter Sunday—the resurrection of Jesus. But don’t take my word for it—let’s see it together.

The Resurrection

Psalm 2 is the most quoted Psalm in the New Testament so we will have to be selective here—I can’t cover all the texts. Let’s ask a two-fold question about Psalm 2:7. (1) what does he mean by “today”? and (2) what does he mean by “Zion”? These two questions have to be answered together.

That is exactly what the New Testament clarifies for us. Romans 1:3–4 is a great place to start. Paul highlights the gospel of God’s Son (Romans 1:2). He then unpacks the greatness of the Son of God from two different vantage points: (1) his earthly life (he was a descendant of David according to the flesh) and his heavenly life (declared to be the Son of God in power at the resurrection by the Spirit of holiness).

When was the eternal Son of God declared to be the Son of God in power? Answer: “At the Resurrection.” He was declared the Son of God “with power.” This phrase “with power” is related to the first phase of being a “descendant of David.” He fulfills the promise of the royal Son of David who would rule in power.

The New Testament provides a resolution to the tension that was felt in the OT. God is King—his dwelling place is in heaven. But He also said that His dwelling place was in Jerusalem in a temple. There was a throne there too—a human king would sit on that throne—descended from David. How do those two thrones fit together? Sometimes the kings of Israel were rebellious and had to be judged? How would those two thrones ever come together and reign together?

At the Resurrection and Ascension, Jesus took his seat on the throne promised to David’s Son. Where is that throne? The earthly David had a throne in the earthly Zion (Jerusalem), but the heavenly David has a throne in the heavenly Zion. Because Jesus is risen and cannot die, the heavenly throne is forever filled. The One who sits on the throne and the Kingly Lion of the tribe of Judah—seated at his right hand.

Hebrews 1 is another place to see the same thing. The author of Hebrews says that God has spoken by his Son in these last days (Hebrews 1:1). He then says something about the Son, namely that God appointed him as the heir of all things (Hebrews 1:2)

Here we see the combination of two vital terms from Psalm 2 in this Hebrews 1 text: Son and heir. The very same two words occur in Psalm 2:7–8. The Father has given his Son the nations as his heritage or inheritance. Jesus is the One who has this inheritance of the nations. Then the author of Hebrews highlights two prophecies to show the fulfillment of this fact (Psalm 2:7 and 2 Sam. 7:14). Both of those texts declare him to be God’s Son—the royal Son—the Son of David.

But it gets better. We are just beginning to see the beauty of Jesus. The author of Hebrews goes even further. Hebrews has already proven from Psalm 2 that Jesus is the promised high heavenly king, but now he adds that the heavenly high king is actually the heavenly high priest too. He proves this point from another Psalm: Psalm 110.

Notice how the themes of royalty and priest come together. Psalm 110 starts with David saying, “the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool” (Psalm 110:1). There are two Lords referenced here. The first Lord is God the Father. Who is the second Lord—the one that David called “my Lord”? It is the eternal Son of God. David’s Son is David’s Lord. Psalm 110 goes on in verse 4 to prophesy that this King would be a new type of priest. He will not come from a line of human priests that all come from the tribe of Levi, but he will be a priest forever. How will he be a priest forever? This new type of priest will hold the office of priest not because physical requirement (Jesus was from the tribe of Judah, not Levi) but by the power of an indestructible life (the Resurrection). He is a King forever—always seated on David’s throne and he is a priest forever—because he is risen from the dead forever and can never die. He is high king forever and the high priest forever because by the Resurrection he lives forever.

But Hebrews goes further—he is not only the Heaven’s High King and High Priest, he is also the all-sufficient sacrifice that can save sinners and bring them into his family and his kingdom. Listen to Hebrews 10:11–13 (and the echoes of Psalm 110).

And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet.

If the rebels don’t kiss his feet and receive his sacrifice for their sins, they will be crushed under his feet.

Resurrection Application: Main Point

So what is the lesson in all of this for today? The nations need the memo from God’s messengers that Jesus is risen. Here is the main point: The Resurrection is the advance warning that judgment is coming. Here is the picture: It is like the tornado sirens that would go off when a tornado had been spotted. The King has been raised. The rebellion failed. The Resurrection had changed everything. The trajectory of history is now inescapably moving toward judgment like a freight train with a full head of steam. 

The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead—Acts 17:30–31.

The Resurrection is the assurance that God means business. Judgment is coming. Be warned—all peoples! The Resurrection is like a certain point in the game Catch Phrase. It is a game where you have a word that you have to get your teammates to guess and once they do you pass the thing that gives out the words to your opposing team. It becomes like a game of hot potato. You do not want to be the one holding the thing in your hand trying to give out clues when the timer goes off. And the timer is what makes it interesting. It is so psychologically effective. It starts out beeping slow … beep …. beep ….. beep ….. beep. Then faster: beep….beep….beep….beep. Then it gets really fast: beep..beep..beep..beep. Then it finally goes off. The Resurrection shows everyone that we are at the end before the buzzer—beep, beep, beep.

The Rebellion Today

I want to be really up front with you as we do exposition with a cultural edge. Where do we see wide scale rebellion like Psalm 2 in our culture today? Take the transgender movement first. Let me set the context for how we should respond. Romans 1 lays out two examples of rebellion against your Creator: vertical and horizontal. The vertical example would be idolatry—worship the creation rather than the Creator.

The horizontal example would be homosexuality. The Creator made them male and female. In other words, the fact that he created a man and a woman instead of a man and a man or a woman and a woman shows his clear design for marriage. Men and women should marry, not men and men or women and women. But homosexuality says, “No God, I will not let you define marriage. I get to define it. I choose to marry the same gender as myself.” That is why Paul calls homosexuality what he does. Out of all the things he could say about it, he calls it “unnatural” (Romans 1:26–27), meaning it goes against the natural order that God put in place from the beginning. Then Paul says something even more striking and out of step with political correctness today. He says that homosexuality is not only worthy of judgment, but it is judgment (“they receive in themselves the due penalty for their error” v. 27). A society where homosexuality flourishes is a society that has already been handed over to judgment and is ripe for final judgment.

But the transgender movement has come up with a way to rebel against God’s design even further upstream than homosexuality. Homosexuality still assumes that the gender God made you is the gender you are. God made you a man or a woman and then designs you to unite in marriage with the opposite gender, you rebel and say—forget it, I can choose to marry the same gender as myself. Now we have found a way to rebel further back. I won’t let you define my sexuality—in fact, I won’t even let you choose my gender. I don’t care if I was born a man, I choose to become a woman. I won’t let you define anything about me. I am completely free to call all the shots.

Abortion goes even further upstream in rebellion. We won’t let some make any life choices because we will kill them before they are born. People take on the godlike power of deciding who lives or dies. What came to mind here are the videos exposing the trafficking of baby parts from Planned Parenthood. So sad and so blind—denying babies value as persons, but saying that their butchered pieces have value on the black market.

People are God’s workmanship—his special creation. Imagine working on writing a poem for weeks trying to get the meter and phrases and the rhyming just right. You folded it up and gave it to them. They did not even open it. They just took it and tore it into many tiny pieces and then stepped on them and drove them into the dirt with your shoe.

That is what people are doing with the babies God gives. No one can skirt around the issue by calling the child a “fetus” because “fetus” is just Latin for “child.” Whenever I hear someone say—that is not a child, it is a fetus—I hear them say “that is not a child, it is just something that in Latin means child.”

But there is another type of rebellion. It is almost always overlooked. There is a Romans 2 type rebellion. Yes, there are people who try to find life and salvation from breaking all the rules and making their own, but there are also people who try to find life and salvation by keeping all the rules. The problem is that they can’t, but they don’t believe it when God tells them they can’t. God says, “There is no one righteous, not even one” (Romans 3:10) and they insert—“except me.” Then in their arrogance they go a step further and say, “and as one of the few righteous people in the world, I will sit on a throne with you and help you judge the world.”

God could justly condemn the whole world, but he instead he chose to save the world by sending his Son. He lived a life we could not live—a perfect, sinless, blameless life. He paid a debt we could not pay —paying the punishment for our sins on the cross. Then God the Father raised him up from the dead. He vindicated all of his Son’s claims to be sinless and the sufficient sacrifice. God accepted the sacrifice and the proof is that Jesus is alive and risen and reigning.

So what seems more impressive to you—what captures your attention? What do you find yourself talking about? Do you emphasize how “out of control the world is” or “how in control God is over it all”? What defines you more—a big view of the world or a big view of God? I love the vision of God here at Bethlehem. We stand with others who have cherished this vision of God like Charles Spurgeon, who said this:

I believe that every particle of dust that dances in the sunbeam does not move an atom more or less than God wishes—that every particle of spray that dashes against the steamboat has its orbit, as well as the sun in the heavens—that the chaff from the hand of the winnower is steered as the stars in their courses. The creeping of an aphid over the rosebud is as much fixed as the march of the devastating pestilence—the fall of leaves from a poplar is as fully ordained as the tumbling of an avalanche. He who believes in God must believe this truth. There is no standing point between this and Atheism. There is no halfway between an Almighty God, who works all things according to the good pleasure of his will, and no God at all!

Conclusion: How Psalm 2 Speaks to the Church Today

The apostles had this view of God long before Charles Spurgeon. The early church shared the message about Jesus’ resurrection in a context that in many ways was even more hostile to the gospel than our own. No American rulers have promised to beat us and imprison us if we speak Jesus’ name. But we could be close. What I want to show you is how the disciples respond.

Acts 4:18–20
So they called them and charged them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.”

Acts 4:23–31
When they were released, they went to their friends and reported what the chief priests and the elders had said to them. And when they heard it, they lifted their voices together to God and said, “Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them, who through the mouth of our father David, your servant, said by the Holy Spirit, 
“ ‘Why did the Gentiles rage, 
and the peoples plot in vain? 
The kings of the earth set themselves, 
and the rulers were gathered together, 
against the Lord and against his Anointed"— 
for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.

They didn’t pray for the political power to put people in their place, they prayed for boldness for their speech to keep putting Jesus in his elevated place as Lord of all. How does the Resurrection put all of this into perspective? In 1 Corinthians 15:58, we are told that because of the Resurrection we can be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord because the resurrection means that nothing we do in the Lord is in vain. All of it is purposeful and none of it is accidental. So let’s keep laboring—moving forward, even falling forward (like they teach running backs in football).

Let’s do two things very purposefully: gather and scatter. First, let’s keep gathering together, especially as we see the day drawing nearer. Why do we gather together on the Lord’s day? It is the day he rose from the dead. Every time we gather for our weekend services—52 times a year—we remember the Resurrection. We confess that Jesus has overcome the world. We repeat Jesus’ words to each other—“in this world you will have tribulation, but take heart, I have overcome the world.” We also say something to a rebellious world. Be warned. Be wise. Your time is short. Kiss the Son. He is alive. He is coming back. Soon it will be too late. Do you hear the drum beat of the Resurrection?

Second, let’s continue to scatter and go to the nations. The nations are here in these cities. Some have never heard that Jesus rose from the dead. Some have never heard. They need to hear of the Lamb who was sacrificed for their sins. They need to hear.

There are still places on this planet that we need to send our people. These places cannot hear about this King because there are no churches and no Christians. No one has reached them with the gospel. In fact, some of them are unreached and unengaged. No one is even planning to reach them yet. The day is drawing near. The resurrection proves it. People continue to step forward ready to go. We need people to keep giving so that we can keep sending. 400 adults and their children are spreading the gospel among the nations right now. 100 people are in the nurture program now. We are praying for more: More people to send and more money to use to send them. We can be intentional and purposeful in our sending and giving because we believe every penny and every plane ticket is totally meaningful. 

The faith will become sight in the future, but we also look to the past and build our confidence with the help of hindsight. Listen to theologian John Frame:

The troubles of Christianity in our own time are not, in my opinion, the worst troubles the church has experienced. The Roman persecutions, the barbarian invasions of Europe, the spiritual darkness preceding the Reformation and the religious wars following it, the secularist “Enlightenment” of the eighteenth century, the totalitarian persecutions of Christians in the early twentieth century (now declining somewhat) were all more difficult challenges, in some respects, than we face today in modern Western civilization. But the church’s persecutors are now obscured in historical dust, while the Christian church continues by God’s grace as a powerful witness to Christ’s Lordship and salvation. The troubles we face today will be similarly dispatched. In God we trust, and in Him we are confident for the future.—John Frame, Ethics

At the Resurrection, two thrones came together—the throne of the Father and the throne of the One who is the Son of David and the Son of God. At the second coming, God will lay claim to every throne and bring them together.

The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.—Revelation 11:15

At the name of Jesus, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.—Philippians 2:11

The eyes of all men will be fixed on the Lamb who was crucified. But before that day, the ears of all men need to hear of the Lamb who was crucified. Let us continue to speak his name with boldness until all have heard.

Sermon Discussion Questions

Outline:

1. The Resurrection (Psalm 2:7–8)
2. The Rebellion (Psalm 2:1–3)

Main Point: The Resurrection is the advance warning that judgment is coming (like the tornado siren that goes off when a tornado has been spotted).

Discussion Questions

1. How does the New Testament help us understand what Psalm 2:7 means by “today”? What is the reference to “Zion” in Psalm 2:6? Why are these two questions important to answer together?
2. How does the resurrection relate to the final judgment—what role does it play?
3. Describe two examples of wide spread rebellion today.
4. What is the difference between a Romans 1 type rebellion and a Romans 2 type rebellion?

Application Questions

1. What would you say to someone living out a Romans 1 type rebellion? What would you say to someone living out a Romans 2 type rebellion?
2. Are you more impressed by the scale of the rebellion or the sovereignty of the King? What would you say to a Christian that has high levels of anxiety about the future and what kind of world we will find ourselves in?
3. How do Christians stay focused on our mission while also carrying on with the practical needs that accompany living in this world (i.e., food, clothes, housing, job, etc.)?

Prayer Focus
Pray for a grace to have our hearts fixed on the hope of the resurrection. Pray for a grace to continue to labor in the Lord with confidence that it is no empty work.